Severe Windows Phone 8 bug rears its head for Gmail users

It looks like some users who have Gmail on their Windows Phone 8 devices are experiencing syncing issues that eventually cause the email app to crash. The problem seems independent of hardware (so 8X and 920 users are affected) and is tied to Gmail specifically.

The problem occurs with the People Hub and linked contacts constantly syncing. Likewise, when people head to their Gmail inbox, it too is stuck on a constant sync and may even crash when one attempts to scroll the message list. Over in our forums, user moc426 made the above video of the phenomenon occurring, a test which site WinSource has also validated as happening on their HTC 8X.

Besides the app crashing, constant failed-syncing of anything is never good and may be related to all of those battery-life complaints. To paraphrase the internet: 'This kills the phone'.

Now for even worse news: deleting the account on the phone will do nothing to fix this and in fact it requires you hard reset the device to stop the syncing...

Causes?

This appears to be tied to Google’s non-standard implementation of IMAP2and may depend on which method you use to set up Gmail. In other words, seeing as this problem just popped up, Google may have altered something on their backend in the last 48 hours resulting in these stability issues.

On Windows Phone 8 when you set up a Google Mail account you are offered two options: ‘Email only’ or ‘Email, contacts and calendar’. That latter option is the push-IMAP2 version while ‘Email only’ is POP and will give you just 15-minute sync periods.

Although we have not yet verified we’re going to bet that the issue is due to Google’s ever-changing IMAP2 settings, which are having a severely negative impact on Windows Phone. Because of that we recommend users perhaps forgo the ‘Email, contacts and calendar’ option and just use ‘Email only’ as POP tends to be more stable.

A third method, which we have not verified, would be to set it up as an Exchange ActiveSync account, (Even Rene Ritchie over at iMore suggests this method as Google doesn't play nice with Apple products either.)

Settings

Email + Accounts

Add an Account

Advanced Setup

Enter in Gmail email address/Password

Exchange ActiveSync

Domain = blank

Server = m.google.com

Once again, we cannot verify at this point if the above method works (or even if it’s different from the automatic Google email setup) but it may be worth a shot for those of you need contact and calendar sync.

We’re contacting Microsoft over the matter for guidance and will follow up if any new information comes forward. In the meantime, may we suggest that you start considering moving to a more standardized service like Outlook.com? You can read our previous articles and tutorials on how to do that here: http://www.windowscentral.com/tags/outlookcom

Have a work around or any insight on this issue? Share with the rest of us in comments.

Thats a bummer of a bug. I am sure MS will fix it. But I'm glad I kicked Google to the cerb when I switched to Windows Phone 6 months ago. Havn't looked back, especially since the wonderful Outlook.com took over most of my e-mail.

I've had this issue with and without gmail synced to my phone. Before and after a a phone reset. I'm syncing exchange, 2 outllooks and facebook. I can't email, message or post from the Me app. In "accounts" it just says that all my accounts are syncing constantly. Phone reset fixed it for 1 day but it's back at it again.

What other issues are there? I have been running the Lumia 920 for a couple days without any problems yet myself .. My gmail has not crashed nor has any sync problems as of this moment .. Is this if you sync your contacts as well cuz I only sync my email with google ..
*EDIT* "The problem occurs with the People Hub and linked contacts constantly syncing" ya guess thats why mine has been running and still is running just fine..

I am having the exact same issue, I have an Exchange account for work and 2 hotmail accounts, mine and my wife's. After I added the 2nd hotmail account, anything e-mail and contact related crashes and goes back to the home screen. The 2nd hotmail account does not show up under email+account, but that screen has all the accounts greyed out and 'synching..' Reboot does not fix the problem.
Edit... someone else mentioned Skype, I did install that and 'merged' my accounts before the issue started occuring. Now my Exchange mailbox won't even open.
edit again :) removing Skype and rebooting the phone this problem for me!!!

Yeah, well, with the slew of issues (day light photo softness, short battery life due to NFC/GPS? and overheating, sharp rattling sound in the vibrate), and now this (syncing problem), I already tried to cancel my Premier order from AT&T.
With Premier, I pay $199, not $99, so heck, I am not about to pay that much to endure these software troubles (if they can fix all with software at all). I will wait till they iron out software bugs.

Both my google account and google apps account work fine, configured using m.google.com as the server. Strange.. I dont get the two radio button options for syncing, i get three individual checkboxes to choose syncing calendar, contacts and email.

I have mine set up with the second option of 'email, contacts, and calendar - no issues (as of yet)'.
I believe this implementation has to be Exchange ActiveSync as Google does not allow syncing contacts over IMAP. WP8 is probably just automating the step of typing in the server inforamation.

More than likely... makes sense to me more than the theories of GPS/Location services or anything else.
I don't use Google for anything, and I've not had any problems except when I had Skype/Facebook signed in all day on Monday. Monday was harsh, but I was in low-signal building with two always on services polling for updates. Not a good combo.
Still, I have to wonder... who the hell still uses IMAP/POP solutions anyway? ActiveSync is winning. Duh! :)

Constant sync isn't a problem for battery in general, it is just a problem on windows phone, bc the current version doesn't support imap idle, so its actively syncing the whole fuckin time, even there's nothin to sync... That sucks

My Google account is set up to sync email, contacts, and calendar. No issues here. I do have it set to download new content as items arrive instead of at some interval. My server shows m.google.com and SSL is enabled.

I use google mail contact and calendar on wp7.5 on L900 without any problem. So how is this WP8 problem caused by Google alone. Even if Google use non-standard IMAP protocol, standard software design must allow service to degrade gracefully and not chocked up like this. I'll put as much blame on Microsoft as on Google for this mishaps.

google is at it again eh... i wonder when authorities will step in and do something about this crap they are pulling, we still don't have a single full working app from them yet and they are harassing us on two fronts already =.= (youtube/gmail)

Daniel, why is this a "severe bug in Windows Phone" if the issue is caused by "Google's ever-chaning IMAP APIs"? (Which is of course all speculation.)

Your headline might have read: Some Windows Phone Users Experiencing Problems Syncing Gmail Accounts and it would have been informative as well as factually accurate. What you wrote instead just looks like click bait.

EDIT: FAIL--This was not intended to be a reply to @andrelamont's post... sorry.

+1
Especially Chrome. If I get one more call where they can't do something because they are using Chrome I'm going to scream. Only have a gmail account because a Job I applied for required it because it needed to link to Google ads.

Google mail is still still alive...i don't even use that POS!! JUST don't create an account with google problem solve!! MSFT does a better job handling people,contact,task,birthday, all together..WHY WOULD YOU EVEN THINK OF PUTTING GOOGLE IN WP8,..SMH

I haven't noticed any issues on my Lumia 920. I've had Google setup to sync email/contacts/calendar since Friday and not had any problems. If I do experience problems I guess I'll hard reset and go the ActiveSync route but until then I'm not going to mess with it.

I have zero issues with Gmail. My issues were with Comcast the first time I setup and synced my 920. I put it in airplane mode to break the sync and set sync to manual in settings. My 900 was still live on wireless so I don't know if there was any sync conflict there. I also set that to manual sync in the event that was an issue. Regardless, I changed my sync settings back to normal on the 920(every 15 for me) and haven't had any syncing issues since.

I don't have any issues with my Gmail using a L920. I set up first using the Email Only and then sync'd my contacts and it told me I had to redo my settings. So I went back into the account manager and it lets me now set push to "arrive as it comes". I didn't have that option prior.

I initially set up my Gmail account to sync email only. This caused the constant sync for me. It also duplicated all of my emails! I then removed the account and set it up again to sync email, contacts, and calendar. I then unchecked contacts and calendar inside settings and haven't had an issue since.

Are you sure this isn't a bug with the Skype Release Preview? I know some users are stating that the People Hub crashes when the Skype for Windows Phone 8 is installed. I personally don't have that issue, and I moved away from Google services years ago (except for Google Reader; haven't been able to find a good alternative yet.)

I had this issue yesterday (mail and messaging crashing constantly) on my Lumia 920 I had for three days. Factory reset, and set it back up (with gmail along with hotmail and exchange) and it has not recurred. I am synching mail only so not sure about the IMAP vs. POP direction, but will obviously keep an eye on it.

I don't know if this is the case with my htc 8x but today it continues syncing my Microsoft account - yes Microsoft - the battery is terrible from day one anyway, even when someone in the contacts call me doesn't show the name,it's shown as an unsaved number. If i go to recent calls after that it does show the name. :-(

I had this problem today too! I do not have gmail... just hotmail.... and was getting the MS account syncing constantly... incoming calls didnt show who it was from... just the phone number. Email and people hub and texts kept crashing back to the home screen.
I called Nokia Lumia support and in the end they told me to hard reset it.... and so far so good.
I wonder if it is linked to skype? I am sure it was ok before I installed that app...
Also my battery isnt great either.

Could this be why battery life is so low on some phones? Because it keeps constantly syncing with Gmail? I've got 1 Gmail account syncing my contacts and email, fully charged 8 hours ago and just checked the battery life. It says I have approximately 1 hour remaining. Wifi, Bluetooth, location services are all turned off, and I disabled most apps from running in the background.

8X, UK, Mail contacts and calendar, no problem. Though I didn't think it would set it up default using IMAP. Who the hell made that decision? I am slowly seeing a lot of things I'm not liking about WP8.

Edit: Don't get me wrong I'm sure most of it will be ironed out .... just have to have patience. Lovely phone though.

From the winsource article: "The problem started with the People Hub. With Facebook and Twitter accounts linked it would not load new updates."
This portion I will confirm that I have this issue. My Facebook account under the people hub doesn't seem to want to update...the last status update is over 1 day old. But the facebook app by MS is working great. When someone sends a status update or replies it gives me a toast notification. So not sure what is up with it.

Not everyone is willing to dump YEARS of GMail just accomadate a phone. Since other services/phones (iOS) work with Google then it is up to Microsoft to make sure their phones work with Google also (I doubt that Google is going to make much effort to accomadate WP8). For those of you who say SC*** Google the rest of us just want our phones to work with the services we are currently using - Google Maps, Google Voice, Google Chat, GMail, Google Search. If this doesn't happen then there is a whole bunch of people who will scratch WP8 off their list since Android and iOS work fine with all the Google Services.

I've actually grown frustrated with gmail's insistence at cross-contaminating my contacts lists between my phone, email, and other sites, and my old hotmail account is spam-ridden and worthless, so I'm kind of welcoming an opportunity to start clean with a new outlook.com address.

For anyone still using WP7.5, have you experienced this? Im getting this exact issue on my Dell Venue Pro and the only way so far to resolve it is to turn off the phone. Ive had the mailbox app Lock up about 4 times in the past 2 weeks.

I think we need a new article: "Severe Windows Phone 8 bug rears its head for Skype users". I created a Skype account last night (using my Microsoft account) and installed the Skype app. After that, I noticed some of my contacts couldn't be opened to place a call. I noticed my Microsoft account was constantly syncing my contacts. This morning, I couldn't open any emails; the Mail app just kept crashing. Then my inbox was just blank. I found this article and deleted my Google account. This fixed the blank inbox and I could open emails most of the time, but I couldn't delete emails. I noticed my Microsoft account was still constantly syncing. I found a comment here that suggested Skype was the culprit. It was in fact Skype that was causing this constant syncing. Problem solved, but now I can't use Skype to IM...

Remember in the 90's when MS where the schmucks? Now Google are the schmucks. I'm sure this wasn't deliberate but I doubt that Google will be sorry.
I've been using ActiveSync with Gmail with no problems. But after reading this, I think I can safely say that I no longer want to use Google products.

Seems a bit irresponsible to have a "Severe Windows Phone 8 Bug" headline when the article goes on to explain that it's not a Windows bug at all but rather a Google iMap implementation issue and that it impact [some] Apple devices as well as WP devices. I very much appreciate the reporting but the headline is misleading at best.

So... how is this a "severe Windows 8 bug" when it's Google doing it...? I agree that one should be able to disassociate the account from Windows (so maybe that's a bug - although a minor one) but by the article's own admission, Apple products have similar problems with Gmail...

I wonder if the settings on gmail account itself could affect on the phones? Go check the settings under the forward and pop -tab.
I don't have the Lumia 920 yetto test those settings out, but on my Lumia 800 g-mails are working well (IMAP in use).

The articles title is very misleading. It should read "Severe GOOGLE bug rears its head for GMail users on Windows Phone 8" or "Severe GOOGLE GMail bug rears its head for Windows Phone 8 users."
Even though the article points out it is most likely due to Google's IMAP implementation, the title implies it is a Microsoft Windows Phone 8 issue.
I hope a fix comes soon as I am planning on buying a new Nokia Lumia 920 and I have a GMail account, but I use my Windows Live account for syncing contacts and such.
Thanks for the heads up.

I just started having this same issue with my email and I have no Gmail services. I have a hotmail, outlook, twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook accounts linked in the phone. The hotmail and outlook accounts will crash if I try to scroll or delete any emails. They and the twitter and linked in accounts are greyed out in the accounts section saying syncing. Sometimes the accounts section will crash when I try to get into it. I've uninstalled Skype with no success. Just started this morning after having the phone for two weeks. Made no changes to the phone last night which would point to this happening. Any recommendations would be great. Hoping not to have to do a hard reset and start from scratch. Seems like I shouldn't have to do that already (or ever) if MS wants me to take them seriously. So I do not believe this is a google problem at all.

For those who stuck with this problem and the mentioned solutions doesn't work:
I've experienced the same issue and uninstalled Skype, restarted the phone - no change. Removed Gmail account, restart, no change.
I've reseted the phone, reinstalled most of my apps but did not log in with a Google/GMail account, only with my Live/Hotmail one and a personal, corporation email account.
After about 1-2 days the problem appeared again. My Mail apps kept crashing, contacts were messed up, etc.
I've tried to turn off/sign out my accounts but all were in a 'syncing' state in which you can't remove it. So I've turned off Wifi, restarted the phone, back to normal. But at the next syncing it appeared again.
So I decided to turn-off my Microsoft account's mail syncing, restarted the phone, and added it again as a normal Hotmail account.
Now it seems to work again, I did it about 24/36 hours ago and it's still fully functional. So my advise is to try to turn off the email syncing of your Microsoft/Live/Hotmail account you've specified as the Phone's primary Microsoft account, maybe even rename it (I did), restart the phone (now the account's Mail app icon should disappear) and add it as a normal Hotmail account. At least it worked for me :)